Building Bridges Through Culture – Jasmine Ghazarian and Rakhman Badalov

The peoples of Armenia and Azerbaijan entered modernity through bloody conflicts, which with certain pauses continue to this day. The political dimension of the conflict is ‘accompanied’ by the cultural one: music, cuisine, carpet weaving… People who have been living in the same geographical and cultural space for hundreds of years are now arguing over each other’s spiritual or material heritage, rejecting any participation of their neighbouring country in its creation. On the one hand, Azerbaijan has consistently erased traces of Armenian cultural heritage on its territory, physically destroying or ‘albanising’ them. On the other hand, Armenia is ready to cede the traces of Muslim heritage existing on its territory to other neighbours (Iran or even Turkmenistan) as long as they have nothing in common with Azerbaijanis.

Why has cultural commonality, instead of contributing to good neighbourliness, become another front of conflict? Is the opposite trend possible, turning culture from a cause for confrontation into a platform for co-operation? Professor of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan Rakhman Badalov and film director from Armenia Jasmine Ghazarian talked about these and other issues within the programme ‘Line of Contact’ on the air of Aliq Media.